Chapter Twenty-Four – Who's Going To Durmstrang?
Harry felt able to walk. In fact, he got up from the cot and led me to the infirmary door. Feeling protective, I insisted that he not over-exert himself. I took his hand, as well as Dad's, and apparated all of us to the Great Hall.
We were almost the last to arrive. Most of my assistants and friends were already eating. I could tell that the talk was light chitchat. Nobody was going to put their belly on hold awaiting my arrival, but they seemed not to want to take up serious matters without me. Well, perhaps they were actually waiting for Harry and Dad.
I was surprised when Harry sat down across from Draco, but Harry immediately asked about his meeting with Narcissa.
"I thought she was strong and doing well. I didn't sense a desire to engage in any mischief. I think that you can safely release her, now that you've finished your business at Azkaban. She can stay with me, if she needs a sponsor to be set free. I don't want her back with McGonagall. I think McGonagall continues to exploit her. She certainly brings out and excuses the worst in my mother."
"I'll ask Mrs. Longbottom to have her released into your custody," Dad promised.
Hermione arrived with Cho, Viktor, Firenze, and Bane. Firenze was badly hobbled by his injury. He slowly walked up behind my chair.
"I'd like to meet with you and Hermione in private after this meeting is finished. I don't mind if you bring Harry and Ron and Neville, or even Cho and Viktor, but please leave the others behind. Perhaps it's best to meet at your house. There are too many prying eyes at Hogwarts."
I realized that this was largely an expanded version of Hermione's committee, when Hermione called the meeting to order and summarized the day's events. A little of what she said was new to me.
"I left the Azkaban circle in a mode in which we can operate it, but nobody else can turn it on without our approval. I left the White Stone in the same condition. It's at a third power, which is enough to sustain the few remaining Dementors. There are only four of them left. They took very heavy losses in this battle.
"I spoke to the head Dementor. I wanted to know why, after all the assurances he had given to us, they chose to join the fight on Slytherin's side. I told him that I thought we had fully demonstrated that we could hold our own against them, if they decided to fight us again.
"He explained that the loyalty to Slytherin was a very old one, going back before the Ministry or Hogwarts even existed. The Dementors could not have agreed to obey the Ministry directives had they known that Slytherin still lived. They had assumed he was long dead, but on seeing him alive had decided they had no choice but to honor their ancient agreement to support him.
"He admits that was an error of judgment, born out of his sense of honor. He assures me that he and the remaining Dementors will now be loyal to us and the Ministry. Frankly, I don't trust him. He betrayed us and knows full well that he broke our agreement. If there was an old commitment to Slytherin, then he had the choice of remaining neutral. I hate to think of destroying the last of a type of magical creature, but fear that is our logical approach. When Slytherin regains his strength, he will be back to the Dementors demanding their support. I'm not confident that the head Dementor won't provide that support."
"I agree with your summary. I also don't know exactly what to do with the Dementors, other than being very wary," Dad told Hermione. "Why were the Dementors used in the attack?"
"I think partly as a diversion, but largely to force us to power up the White Stone to kill them. Powering up the White Stone must be very important to the regeneration of Slytherin. He happily sacrificed most of his Dementors to that end."
"I agree," Dad concluded.
"I'm inclined to destroy them," Tony stated. "You have to keep the White Stone on at least a third of its power to keep them fed, and that will inevitably help Slytherin restore his power."
"We can develop a different way to feed them," I suggested. "We had considered putting as many hares on Azkaban as the island's vegetation will support, which I realize is not an awful lot. We dismissed that idea before, but there were a lot more Dementors then."
Tony clearly didn't want to talk about hares. "Moving to a different topic, how can we find out if the Black Stone can be trusted? It's basically a thinking machine which has adopted its own agenda. That makes it a self-aware, senscient thinking machine. That has been one of the great fears of the computer age. There is no controlling where it may decide that its interest lies. I know that most of you have no idea what a computer is, but Hermione does, and I think Harry also does."
I instinctively objected to this, as if my best friend was being maligned. "Harry bought a computer for us. I can do a little with it. My Black Stone does not feel like our computer does. I can talk to it, I've been inside it. It has helped me when I was injured.
"I don't think it sabotaged the Quest on purpose. I wish I knew who made it do it. I will talk to the Stone. I think the best approach may be to become one with the Stone again. If Hermione and I did it together, we might be able to work our way into the part of the Stone that it can't see. I don't think the Stone itself is bad. It needs our help. It is frightened about what has happened to it and is trying to figure things out, but it can't do it by itself. If you had been one with the Stone, you'd be less frightened of it."
"I don't think my government would be happy if I took the risk to become one with your Stone. A Prime Minister with a piece of a thinking stone in his head is hardly going to be trusted. I'd be viewed as insane if I did such a thing," Tony objected. "What if Stewart became one with the Stone and reported back to me?"
"I'd ask how that would be any more reassuring than my just telling you that I've been one with the Stone more than once and think it is trustworthy, but I don't want to force you to tell me that you don't trust me."
"I do trust you. I trust Stewart more. I trust you less with regard to the Stone than I trust you yourself. You are entirely too close to the Stone to be objective. Do you notice how often you refer to it as 'my Stone'? It's not your Stone. You didn't create it, you didn't give it its instructions, and its primary loyalty is not to you. You don't really even understand it. I'm not trying to make you feel less good about yourself. I don't understand or control it either. But I am more than a little afraid of it, and I'm not the one walking around with pieces of it inside my head. Nor am I the one that it almost got killed by turning your Quest into a trap."
"I know all of that. I do worry – both about the Stone and for the Stone. I don't know who else is giving it instructions, but I think its main loyalty is to the Light Guardian and that's where its basic instructions come from. I know somebody else has interfered with it. It might have been Umbridge, but I killed her. It might have been Slytherin, but he is largely disabled for now. Now is the safest time to commune with the Stone."
"It also might have been the God who got away during your last battle. I can't even be sure that our friends across the pond couldn't have built such a thing. You've mentioned Umbridge and Slytherin as possibilities for seizing control of the Stone. Again, please don't be insulted, but I doubt anyone from your community is technically smart enough to seize control of something as complex and powerful as the Stone."
Actually, I did feel a bit insulted, but chose to explain things calmly to Tony. "It doesn't need to be somebody who is as smart as your scientists. It can be like Slytherin controlling the Dementors. He can take them over because something in their past leads them to believe that they have no choice but to obey him. He needs no great understanding of them to do that. If there were somebody whom the Stone believed it was required to obey, they wouldn't need to be smarter than the Stone or to understand how it worked to force it to obey. They'd just have to say 'here I am and this is what I want you to do'.
"I don't understand how the Stone works. I just think thoughts to it, and usually it has done what I've asked it to do. That doesn't make me smarter than all the others, like you, whom the Stone won't accept requests from. It just means that the Stone knows that I'm the Mother of the Future, and at some time long ago it was taught that it must listen to the Mother. I don't know why that would be so, but it appears that it is. It's even possible that when the Light Guardian spoke to us, it also spoke to the Stone and told it that I was a friend."
"I understand that, Ginny, but I'm not talking about the normal operation of the Stone. I'm talking about someone who understands the Stone well enough to make it malfunction in a way that suits the purposes of that unknown someone. That someone would have to tamper with the Stone at a basic level that simply requires more technical skills than anyone in your community possesses. I'm not explaining this at all well, because I really don't understand it myself. My community owns very complex computers. It also contains bad actors who sometimes take over these computers to cause mischief. I don't begin to understand how they do that, I just know that they can. Perhaps Hermione can give you a better explanation later."
Hermione took this as her cue to rejoin the conversation.
"The Wizarding and Goblin communities once had a far greater understanding of magical technology than they do today. They built extremely complex devices. Well, at least some magical creatures built them, we think it was the Goblins or us. Perhaps they even built the Black Stone, although that's old enough that I suppose it would have to have been the Goblins who built it. Or perhaps the Elves or even the Leprechauns – they seem to have been very powerful back in the day. We think the Elves built at least portions of the pyramid.
"Sorry, I got lost a bit there. It's a thought I need to follow up. My point is that remnants of that magical technology still exist. Look at the monolith that we gave you to prevent anyone from apparating into your office without permission – that is smaller but every bit as complex as the Black Stone. I'm quite sure, by the way, that your experts have had a very close look at it. It is important that you tell us what you've learned about the monolith. That knowledge likely also applies to the Stone. There are Wizards who can control the monolith on a somewhat basic level. I'm learning a bit of that from Ellie. She understands it quite well.
"We are able to use a lot of ancient magical technology that we can't recreate and don't really understand. As a student, I was lent a device which allowed me to go as much as two hours back in time. I didn't understand a bit of it, but I could make it do what I wanted it to do. It was just a tool, and I had been shown how to operate it. That's all I needed to know. That tool is now lost and we can't replace it."
I could tell that this left Tony unsatisfied, but he chose to change the topic. Perhaps Hermione had really worried him with her talk of going back in time. He recovered, and tried to hide his reaction by once again talking at us. "I'm sorry that I sidetracked us all. Just one last point, before I leave that topic – if one intends to tamper with a computer, one needs to find an access point in the case of a computer that isn't connected to, umm let me just say to other computers. By that logic, you should know that those who have become one with the Stone would be in the perfect position to tamper with the Stone. That is something for Ginny to thing about.
"We came here to discuss the wisdom of continuing the Quest. You know that the next stop is Durmstrang, so you don't need the Stone's assistance to go at least that far. That gives us time to assess the reliability of the Stone. The current question is whether or not you should go to Durmstrang and what, if any, rules you should follow in doing so. That clearly includes whom you should take with you. Since the version of the rules you were given prohibit your sitting here in this room, and talking face-to-face with the rest of us, your original Quest has been abandoned.
"You seem free to set your own rules, choose your own destinations, treat those you find there how you deem appropriate, and complete repair tasks of your choosing. This may or may not count as an actual Quest. I don't know who among us is empowered to answer that question.
"Lest I forget – before you go to Durmstrang, and I'm quite sure that you've already decided to go there, I must insist that you do whatever is necessary to the circle you built under Stonehenge to make that circle absolutely safe for the tourists."
"It's safe now. The circle we built is not operating. I'll think what action we should take is to make it harder for someone to reactivate it. Whoever doesn't go on to Durmstrang can take care of that.
"Yes, I do intend to go to Durmstrang, with as much of my team as is willing to go with me. Yes, there are others I'd like to add to the team. And, yes, I realize that we must decide if we are just a group from Britain traveling to Durmstrang to help the German Wizards with their circle, or if we are a Quest team. If we are a Quest team, then I guess we need a new set of rules. They will have to be rules which are agreeable to the Quest team. I know that I am going to add Professor Celine to the team, assuming she is still willing to participate, despite everything that has happened."
"I know that my advice may not be as welcome as it once was," Firenze apologized, "but I request that we suspend this meeting so that Cotto, King Gobbledegook, former King Goblanze and I can discuss possible rules with Hermione and Ginny. We'll return to this group to present our recommendations."
"That is acceptable. We'll wait here for you and chat among ourselves. Some of the rest of us may have strong views regarding the path forward for Ginny's team," Dad excused us. I think he was tired of how much I and especially Tony had been monopolizing the discussion. I was sensing cooperation and respect, but also more than a little competitiveness and mutual irritation between Tony and Dad.
I suggested to Firenze that we meet at our house. As Firenze collected the others, I observed Dad in a very intense conversation with Tony and Ellie.
I used a Stone-assist to apparate us all to our back yard. It was pleasant to be outdoors in the shade of the trees, so I just mouthed 'Accio blankets' and suggested that we lounge on the grass while we discussed Firenze's proposal. Harry fetched refreshments.
Firenze was sitting very gingerly. "Your flank is really sore, isn't it?" I asked him. "Would you like me to teach you a pain-relieving spell?"
He would and I did. He seemed quite a bit more comfortable. "You took a silly chance during the fight in the cavern. You were supposed to just fire arrows. Did you want to die?"
"No, I wanted to live, but felt the need to redeem myself. I failed you and the Light Guardian by not thinking as clearly as I am able to. I shamed myself and my herd. I fired arrows, but the Goblin blocked them. I saw a chance to charge him and I took it. I didn't think he could kill me before I got him. This is just pain. I will survive it. It serves to remind me of my error and that I must do better. I want you to trust me, and not think I'm trying to take over your Quest as the stern father."
"I trust you. I said that when I was frustrated and angry at you and Cotto. You were both very stubborn, but you meant well. I can't hold that against you. You and Cotto are still my trusted friends. I will always be willing to seriously consider your advice. I won't ignore my own instincts, but I will carefully weigh whatever you tell me."
"Thank you. I do have advice for you. You must go to Durmstrang, and you must do so quickly. With relaxed rules, Adrienne Celine can help you. There is no point in sticking to the rules that have already been abandoned: you may visit the surface, you may meet with your Keepers and others, you may return home for breaks, and you may change the members of your team, as I did when I added Jaden. All of that has already happened, so if that forfeits your Quest, it is already forfeited. The other rules should stand."
"Other than no more chocolate, diamonds, or fire, that's just about all of the rules gone. What's left?"
"After Durmstrang, your future destinations still come from the Stone. The rules still change after Durmstrang. At that point it is still succeed or die – perhaps it is just succeed or face disgrace, the death of the spirit."
"Death or disgrace – that's quite a difference," Hermione told him.
"It is, but to ones as proud as yourselves, I'm not sure which you would rather choose. You'll learn the final rules after Durmstrang. You may decide at that time. Today's decision is just to move forward to Durmstrang."
"That's true, but I got the impression that you wanted to tell me a lot more than this," I told Firenze. "What is it?"
"You must become one with the Stone, before you decide whether to travel beyond Durmstrang. You and Hermione must travel to BeyondWorld and then into the Stone. The sooner that is done the better, so you must complete the Durmstrang assignment speedily.
"I fear that your friend Tony is becoming more distrustful and that he will destroy the Stone. That would be very bad. You must take Tony with you when you visit BeyondWorld and the Stone. Tony says he will trust what Stewart reports, but he won't. His fear has become too great."
Cotto supported everything that Firenze had told me. King Gobbledegook just said, "it really is important that you continue the Quest. I am very sure that your Quest is not now forfeit. I hope that you are still willing to travel with my Tendra."
I was more than willing for Tendra to remain on the Quest. When we returned to the Great Hall, I learned that the other members of the Quest Team had found Professor Celine and had brought her up to date on everything. They were all willing to go to Durmstrang. That was a great relief to me.
I was surprised when Little Ba'al decided to join us. I was unsure how to respond to his offer, since he was obviously male and it had been stressed to me that the Quest was females only.
Cotto noted my confusion and quickly spoke up. "The rules do not apply to Gods and Goddesses. Any God who wishes to travel with you is free to do so."
So, Little Ba'al was coming with us, even though, by his own admission, he wasn't quite a God. I would honor his decision. He was knowingly putting himself in great danger. We had saved him and his honor would not allow that effort to go un-repaid. I knew that his honor required risk for risk. I hoped he would be an asset on the Quest. Those, like Firenze, who are too eager for repayment or redemption, can willingly forfeit their lives when there is no need to do so.
The larger group thought that we should leave within the day. So did I. I spent the day and especially the night with Harry, leaving the packing to the others.
Cho had visited the Durmstrang circle several times. She apparated us there.